


Souls

by Skadia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Apocalypse, Gen, Humans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 06:45:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skadia/pseuds/Skadia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's amazing, Gabriel thinks, how everything is always exactly the same. The big things look exactly like the tiny ones. His family looks so much like the Winchesters... Or is it the Winchesters that looks so much like what God crated long before?<br/>So he watches. And slowly, he understands...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [androbeaurepaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/androbeaurepaire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I am nothing but a tree](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/43658) by androbeaurepaire. 



> A gift for Andro who is amazing and deserves it ( and I should stop right now before I write her a long love letter^^). Her art inspire me so much ! And this particuliar piece speaks volume to me !   
> So there's more to follow^^

Angels see souls. They actually see everything, but souls…. It’s like they can taste them, feel them and see them grow. There is no deep pit full of souls in Heaven. No big bowl where God takes bits of souls and put them into newborn humans. They grow on their own and they are the most amazing thing Gabriel has ever seen. And he’s old enough that he almost saw the creation of everything. But nothing can compare. 

Angels are not winged human being sitting all day long on big clouds up in the sky. Neither are archangels. They’re warriors, they’re God’s Sons and Daughters (even if they don’t have any gender), they’re celestial being. That means human life is nothing to them. It’s nothing to Gabriel. He was there long before the human race and he’ll be there long after the last of them dies. But God (Daddy?) told the angels to love His creatures more than anything, more than him. And Gabriel cannot understand. What’s to love? Humans are… tiny, petty, weak, full of sins, full of themselves. Their eyes will never see beauty the way Gabriel sees it. They will never feel the sunset. They will never look at a flower and see it in all her dimensions, see her dead and living at the same time, see every molecules, see what the flower is and what she might be…What’s to love in the Human race? He asks one day. Or one night. Doesn’t matter anyway. Time only matters for mortals things, like humans. Yeah, time matters to humans. Gabriel doesn’t care about time, he cares about God. He cares about Michael who looks at humans as if they’re the most incredible thing he ever saw. He cares about Lucifer who’s arguing with their Father almost constantly now. 

Humans have only crept out of the water. They did not even discovered fire yet… and they’re already slowly destroying everything that ever mattered to Gabriel. Everything that ever was. 

So what’s to love? 

Lucifer snorts. There’s nothing to love he says. And Gabriel nods. 

Michael takes him by the hand ( or whatever, they don’t have a physical body. They don’t need one. He’s just here, and it’s all Gabriel needs.) and shows him. 

You only see when you know how to look. And Michael teach him how to look. It takes centuries but time doesn’t matter. And Gabriel is a devoted student. 

Under Michael’s guidance, he starts to see souls. He sees them form in every human being. He sees how beautiful they are and can’t stop staring. Mothers giving birth and their soul is so bright that for just a tiny moment they shine like the sun, like Lucifer’s grace. Lovers finding each other and their souls melt, soft and caring like Michael’s wings. And he sees heroes, warriors, common people, children, poor, rich, narrow minded and smart people. They all have a soul that flashes, shines, sparkles. They form an incredible mass of light that’s constantly moving across the Earth and slowly, Gabriel finds himself amazed by what he sees. 

He sees God when he look at humans. He sees Him in their smiles, in their souls, even in the atrocity they commit because all of it is his Father’s creation. And when they start to pray… Gabriel has no faith, he is faith, they all are. But when Humans pray… he can see God and he loves them because he loves God. 

He tries to explain it to Lucifer. Because things are worse than ever up here. Heaven is like a house they can no longer call home. There is no peace since Lucifer is turning angels against God. And Gabriel can’t endure that. So he looks down at the humans. 

They’re truly his father’s creations. Because what’s happening in Heaven, he can see it happening down here. Anger, resentment and misunderstanding. Families broken, cries, tantrums… yeah, down here, up here, same difference. 

Then comes the Fall. Lucifer is cast out of Heaven.

Gabriel doesn’t have a heart, he doesn’t need one. He doesn’t have a soul. But that’s two thing he doesn’t need to love his brother. He doesn’t need a soul nor a heart to feel crushed when he sees Lucifer’s wings burning, when he feels his neverending suffering. 

Down here, humans started to think, to make up wise quotations. One of them says that you shouldn’t think that nothing can go worse. Because the gods will prove you wrong. Gabriel can only agree with that now that Heaven is split in two. One by one, then hundreds by hundreds, angels follow Lucifer in his Fall. And Gabriel knows with every fiber of his celestial being that he won’t see his brother ever again. 

Why did God create him able to feel? He was always the good and curious son. And now he feels punished as if he took sides for Lucifer. As if he was the bad one. He feels punished because even if he followed the orders, even if he started to love humans as his Father asked, he still lost his brother. And it hurts. 

So one day, Michael shows him. There’s a new soul. It’s a simple one like Gabriel saw countless times before. But Michael knows something he won’t tell, so Gabriel keeps staring. He stares as the soul grows, takes a shape and settles on the human. It’s a boy, then it’s a man (time still matters for humans Gabriel has to remember once in a while), then it’s Dean Winchester. 

First comes the soul, that’s what got Gabriel hooked on this family, this soul so bright that Michael knows something about. Then comes the faithless man. And then, he starts to see. Really see and Michael smiles behind him. 

Dean Winchester’s soul has it’s own shape, almost it’s own life. It’s an evergrowing tree stuck on his back that Gabriel can see even when Dean is clothed. It’s a dead tree. There was a time where it had leaves and flowers. But this time is long gone. It’s still bright and shiny and Gabriel can still feel it when he comes close enough, unnoticed apart from a shiver that Dean think is the cold wind. But now, the roots on his lower half are torn and the branches are crooked. There’s no more fruits growing out of them, only heads. Dead heads that slowly turns into skulls melting across his shoulders. 

And Michael tells him about the Vessels, about the Big Plan, the Apocalypse and Gabriel realises what he didn’t see. What he was to busy staring at humans to see. God is gone. Long gone. And there’s a war going on between his two beloved brothers. A war that will only end bloody (but angels, archangels do not bleed, they don’t have to) in which sooner than later he’ll be asked to take sides. 

Michael or Lucifer? 

Gabriel looks down one last time at the Winchester brothers. They’re truly god’s greatest work. Full of every sin, every qualities, everything that ever was. They’re a tiny perfect reproduction of his own family. nd all he can see now is a picture of destruction. Of what once was and will never be again. 

So he leaves. 

He knows he’s a coward. 

He leaves and hides from everyone, from Michael, from Lucifer, even from the Humans for a time. He becomes a pagan god, a trickster. He’s still immortal but he doesn’t feel so celestial now, and time starts to matter. 

He see souls. Beautiful and perfects souls. And he feels deeply his own lack of it. Like a burn that never goes away, like an itch he cannot scratch. 

He keeps an eye on the Winchesters when their time comes. He knows that now the end is near. And he wonders, why? Why, Father? Why did you create this? 

What’s to love into the human race? You gave them souls, and they brought us destruction. Why? 

It’s only when he sees Castiel with the Winchester that he understands one last thing: he’s not a coward. Some might think he is. But looking at Sam Winchester, looking at the rotten tree on Dean’s back side , he understands that there are different ways to fight. That sometimes, not picking a side is taking a side. Taking a different path, making his own battle to fight outside of the steps that his brothers traced before him. That’s the most precious thing God gave to humanity. Not their souls, but their free will. 

Seing Castiel with the Winchesters makes him realize that he doesn’t have a soul (he sees them, he does not require one), but he has free will. And he just want the fight to end, one way ore another. 

What’s to love, Father? It hurts so much…


End file.
